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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Aquatic Photosynthetic Organisms
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1497064
This article is part of the Research Topic Functional Response of Aquatic Plants to Environmental Stressors View all 12 articles

New insights into the salt-responsive regulation in eelgrass at transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels

Provisionally accepted
Huan Zhao Huan Zhao 1,2Chang Liu Chang Liu 2,3*Xu Dong Xu Dong 1,2Dazuo Yang Dazuo Yang 1,2Qingchao Ge Qingchao Ge 1,2Peng Lu Peng Lu 1,2
  • 1 College of Fisheries and Life Science, Dalian Ocean University, Dalian, Liaoning Province, China
  • 2 Key Laboratory of Marine Bio-resources Restoration and Habitat Reparation in Liaoning Province, Dalian Ocean University, Dalian, China
  • 3 Zibo Vocational Institute, Zibo, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The adaptation mechanisms of marine plants to the environments have garnered significant attention in recent years. Eelgrass (Zostera marina), a representative marine angiosperm, serves as an ideal model for investigating the mechanisms underlying salt tolerance. This study integrated mRNA, sRNA, and degradome sequencing data to identify key genes associated with salt tolerance in eelgrass. The results indicate that a series of genes involved in biological processes such as "in response to water deprivation" and "biosynthesis of secondary metabolites" respond to salt stress.Analysis of cis-regulatory elements and expression similarities suggests that the ABA synthase 9-cisepoxycarotenoid dioxygenase (NCED) may be regulated by ERF members, while phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) may be regulated by MYB members. At the post-transcriptional regulation level, miRNA156 and miRNA166 might be involved in the response by regulating potential target genes, such as members of the WRKY and HD-ZIP families. Additionally, eelgrass exhibits unique responses to salt, such as the up-regulation of genes involved in the "fucose biosynthetic process". These findings enhance our understanding of how eelgrass adapts to the marine environment. As a marine monocotyledon, eelgrass is helpful to find conserved salt tolerance mechanisms by crossspecies comparison. By examining the transcriptional responses of homologous genes in eelgrass, rice, and maize, we identified several groups of genes that are conserved in their response to salt stress. These conserved gene resources may provide targets for genetic engineering to improve the salt tolerance of crops.

    Keywords: Zostera marina, Salt stress response, miRNA, transcription factor, comparative transcriptome, Degradome sequencing, gene regulation

    Received: 16 Sep 2024; Accepted: 17 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Zhao, Liu, Dong, Yang, Ge and Lu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Chang Liu, Zibo Vocational Institute, Zibo, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.